Revelation
by Kiera Kingsley
Summary: Bobby's POV. What if all you have left in the world is about to be lost?
1. Chapter 1

This is my first venture into Law and Order: CI fanfic, and I don't have a handle on all the canon yet. Please review! Please? *big, hopeful smile*  
  
  
  
The coffee is tasting bitter in my mouth and my eyes are stinging, and all I can think about is lying three feet away in a hospital bed.  
  
This seat is hard. I've been sitting on it for about two or three hours now, and my legs are aching. My hands are numb, my feet are sore, and I really think I'm going crazy, but there's no way in hell I'm going to leave while she's in there.  
  
Images reel through me in waves, sinking through my skull and swamping my brain. I'm flooded, drowning in my own memories. Bright white sunlight, lying in shining slants across the ground. Clacking heels and clopping loafers going up and down the stone steps, crossing the courtyard. Tables, clusters of people, a smoky, steaming hot dog stand, and chairs scraping across the tiles. I go through this place every day.  
  
Eames is beside the coffee stand, two cups in her hands. The coffee guy, Paul, with his orange dash of hair and his nose ring, is talking languidly to another customer. "You're late," she calls to me, her voice coloured with laughter. "Hot date last night?"  
  
I could look at her forever, listen to her talk, watch her smile, for she mesmerises me, but instead I manage to grin and get one of the coffee cups away with spilling or betraying anything. "Yeah, sure, with a mechanic and a monkey wrench. How about you?"  
  
"Mmm. Not much to speak of. About that Cheyabani case, I think-"  
  
And suddenly, suddenly-  
  
Time stopped there. I think my heart did, too. I know my breath did, because I was choking afterwards. Because something exploded in my ears as Eames reeled, Paul gave a terrified shout, and then she was sinking to the ground with a hand at her chest while people were screaming and scrambling to get away.  
  
I had my arms around her before both of us could think, catching her, gripping her. I don't remember much beyond that, but Paul told me later that I was yelling her name over and over, babbling incoherently.  
  
All I could think of was blood, seeping through her fingers, staining her hands that felt so cold and limp. Her eyes were fluttering and I could only hear an uneven, wavering rasp when I leaned close to her. She was trembling, and I-I was shaking so hard I could barely get to my feet when the ambulance came.  
  
This is horrible. I actually now what that word means now, because I've felt it right here, in my heart. I'm supposed to be a grownup and all I want to do is cry like a three-year-old.  
  
Eames-she's my life. I can't live without her. I know that if she. I know that I'll fall apart somehow, everything will go to pieces. I think I've loved her ever since I've known her.  
  
Wait. Something's happening. Doctors are running in and out of her room- if I grip this chair any harder it's going to snap-  
  
A tall guy, silver hair, white coat, whisks a cart down the hallway and I can't see past him for a minute. When he's gone a doctor with pale blue eyes is in front of me. "Detective Goren?" 


	2. Chapter 2

*reads her reviews and melts into a big puddle of mush* Thank you! You are all the sweetest people on Earth! *is blushing bright red* Here's the second part:  
  
  
  
"Detective Goren?"  
  
"Yeah, that's me." I'm out of that chair faster than the doctor can blink in bafflement at me. "How is she?"  
  
"How's who?" The doctor tilts his head, his glasses askew. "I'm sorry, sir, but there's a telephone call for you at the front desk."  
  
I stare past him at her hospital room. Doctors are still chasing each other in and out of there, somebody's bringing in a tray of needles, and my heart jolts and shudders at each frantic sound floating out. But if it's the front desk, it could be important.  
  
"Sir?" The doctor is blinking at me again. "Are you waiting for somebody?"  
  
"Yes," I mutter. Aloud, "No, I'm coming."  
  
My head swims as I follow the guy down the corridor and into an elevator. I nearly tumble over his feet as he squeezes into the small elevator car and adjusts his glasses. He gives me a mildly offended look and straightens his scrubs; dizzy and sick as I feel, I have to resist the urge to maul him.  
  
The elevator whooshes and bleeps down a couple of floors before opening onto a scene of chaos. Nurses and technicians are yelling at each other and jamming the glass doors open as the siren of an ambulance whines outside. Over the din, I can barely hear the sound of ringing phones and jangling keys. The doctor grabs my arm and hauls me towards a desk where a woman is stuffed into a chair, clicking away at a keyboard.  
  
"Andrea?" The woman leans her head towards him, her bleary eyes still focused blankly on the screen. "The phone call, for Detective Goren."  
  
"Oh, yeah." Her voice is completely flat. "Over there." She points to the phone.  
  
I clutch the receiver and press the 'line' button. "Hello?"  
  
"Bobby! Long time, no see. Last time I saw you, you were working in Vice, right? Heard about Detective Eames-I'm really sorry about that. Is it serious?"  
  
I nearly drop the phone. In fact, the receiver slips and I have to snatch and grab in mid-air. When I can talk again, my voice is rough and shaking. "What the hell are you doing phoning me, you bastard?"  
  
"Yeah, I guess it is." A long, low laugh. "Well, I would say that I hope she gets better, but you see, I shot her, so that would be a lie-and it's wrong to tell lies, isn't it? See you around, Bobby."  
  
And he hangs up.  
  
I want to scream. I think I have. I know I'm swearing, cursing, nearly sobbing, because the doctor's got his hand on my shoulder and Andrea with her slack jaw and dull eyes is staring blankly at me. I wrench myself loose and run down the hallway, back to the elevator, which is empty.  
  
The doors close smoothly on me with a small beep, and, thank God, I can finally cry.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

  
  
I get off the elevator quietly, walking steadily into the hallway. The tears are dry in my eyes; there are no more choked, keening cries left inside me. There are red lines slashed across my hands where I dug my nails into my palms, and red lines around my eyes.  
  
The chair is still empty when I reach it, and I'm about to collapse onto it and fall asleep when I catch a glimpse of Eames's room.  
  
It's empty.  
  
My heart stops. Literally. I feel it shudder, skid, swerve like a careening car in a police chase, then skip a few beats. And then it races right up into my mouth, and I can't think for the emotions crashing down within me. Eames, Eames-  
  
I whirl around and fly at the first doctor I see. "Doctor-there's a patient missing, she's not in her room-"  
  
The doctor makes an impatient gesture and shoos me away. He charges off down the hallway with a clipboard in hand, leaving me in his wake. I turn on a small nurse with wide eyes as she clutches her files to her chest. No doubt she thinks I'm crazy. No doubt I am. "Excuse me, can you tell me-"  
  
"I'm sorry, sir, ask somebody else!" And she scuttles off, strewing papers all over the ground.  
  
I'm panicking. I don't care what happens, I don't care who thinks what, I just want to find her. I have to find her. Where the hell is she?  
  
I grab the arm of a technician who's passing by. "Sir, please, you've got to help me, I'm looking for-"  
  
The technician turns, and then he swears and tries furiously to shake me loose. But I've got a death grip on his arm, and there's nothing I want to do more than kill him right now. "You!"  
  
  
  
I know it's short, I'm sorry! More next time! 


	4. Chapter 4

  
  
"Get the hell off me!" The 'technician' wrenches his arm loose with a quick, sharp jerk. He takes off, sprinting down the hallway at full speed- at least, until I grab his wrists and shove him up against the wall.  
  
"You-" He's swearing, and so am I, and I slam his head against the wall. He yowls, letting out small, whining whimpers, then gasps for breath. "Don't touch me! I'll tell you! Don't touch me!"  
  
"What? What will you tell me?" He yelps as I take a tighter grip on his wrists; they almost snap in half, and I can tell they're throbbing painfully.  
  
"I'll tell you, I'll tell you, just get the hell away from me!"  
  
"Tell me what?"  
  
He stops short, his breath suddenly shallow. He heard the rage in my voice as I screamed in his ear, and he sees the fury in my eyes. And I see fear in his.  
  
He gulps, takes a long, shaky breath, then slowly wavers, "I did it. I shot your partner."  
  
"Just like you shot Peter Ruskine?" I lean in closer to him. "Just like you raped and strangled those two college students?" No answer. "I got you convicted, you wanted revenge, you came after me?"  
  
He still doesn't say a word. "Why her?" My voice is raw again, trembling with rage. "Why her and not me?"  
  
For the first time, he smiles-a thin, sharp, vicious smile, like the edge of a knife. His eyes glitter. "I've been watching you. I've seen you with her at that coffee stand for days now. I watched her, too, as she came out of her house-she's very pretty, isn't she? Those college students were just kids, but I was thinking, well, what the hell-"  
  
He screams as I fling him bodily against the wall, slamming his bones against the white tiles. He slumps slightly, recoiling as he sobs and shakes. "What the hell are you doing here?"  
  
He takes a long time to answer, holding his head and trembling, and I'm ready to toss him out the window when he speaks. "I followed them to the hospital-I stole a uniform and an ID pass-I hung around as they worked on her. She looked like she was getting better-so I slipped outside, I found a nurse and I said I needed a needle full of insulin-she gave one to me, I got back inside, I told the doctor it was the barbiturate they were looking for-"  
  
Insulin shock. My throat tightens as I see the scene: the nurse slipping the needle into Eames's arm, her body convulsing, her heart stopping. The doctors trying to revive her... and failing.  
  
"They moved her," he chokes out. "They moved her into another room. I don't know where she is."  
  
After I phone Deakins, after the police officers come and drag the 'technician' off in handcuffs as I read him his rights, I drift back down the hallway. Another doctor, her blue eyes grave behind her glasses, approaches me briskly. "Detective Goren?"  
  
"That's me..."  
  
"I have news about your partner, Detective... sorry-" She checks her clipboard. "Detective Eames."  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Thanks, Wings of Love! *grins* Here's the fifth part:  
  
  
  
"How is she?" I thought I was completely worn out a minute ago; now, I'm gabbling again as my heart jolts back to life with a painful thud. "Is she alive? Is she-"  
  
"Sir," the doctor interrupts, looking exasperated, and I subside with an effort. "Please, take a seat."  
  
I sink slowly into a chair, feeling what little blood is left in my face drain out as my hands curl into trembling fists. The doctor seats herself primly beside me, perching on the edge of the chair, and rustles the papers on her clipboard. "Detective Eames is in very serious condition," she reports matter-of-factly, and I feel an instant rush of relief followed by a surge of dread. "The insulin shock she experienced weakened her considerably, and her vitals are extremely low. We're doing everything we can, of course, but..."  
  
Her voice fades away in an echo, as if I am travelling down a long empty passage. Thoughts are whirling through my head in violent storms, as my heart is flooded with emotion. I feel so badly shaken that I can't believe that's it's only been a few hours since this all began.  
  
"Sir?" The doctor's voice cuts across my trance. "Would you like to see her?"  
  
Would I like to see her? I'm halfway down the hallway before the doctor can stand up.  
  
The doctor, all but tsk-tsking at my impatience, shakes her head as she leads me down a few corridors before reaching a half-open door. There's a glass window beside it, and I can see a few figures hovering over a bed inside the room. My heart rattles and races as the doctor ushers me in.  
  
It's a small room, packed with equipment and furnished with one chair and one bed. A window filters some pale light onto the white bedsheets, there are some surgeons standing by who bustle around and look curiously at me, and there-in the bed. Lying deathly still, her face white and hollow.  
  
I look at Eames, nestled among a mass of needles and tubes and bandages, and I think, 'God, she's beautiful'. I want to hold her close and kiss her awake, but instead I draw up the chair by her bed and take her hand in mine. It feels like a snowflake, icy-cold, feathered and translucent, ready to melt away into mist.  
  
I don't notice everyone else leaving until they're gone, and we're alone. I can only watch her, look on as my partner fights with death.  
  
"Eames," I whisper, and it comes out cracked and broken. I have to clear my throat a couple of times before I can go on. "Eames, can you hear me? I'm not letting you go, understand? You're not dying because of me, I'm not going to let that happen."  
  
Her eyes, so finely drawn in her slender face, are shadowed and still. "It's my fault he shot you," I confess in a whisper, letting her hand fall back to her side and laying my head down beside it, falling to my knees. "This is all my fault. I can't let you die, I can't... don't die. Please, don't die."  
  
The room whirls around me. My eyes stagger and sway like a drunken man, then fall into darkness. The exhaustion, hunger, and worry are too much; I drift off into a deep sleep.  
  



	6. Chapter 6

A thank you straight from the heart (and I mean it!) to everyone who reviewed-you are the best! *huge smile*  
  
  
  
I wake up with a hand on my shoulder. "Detective Goren?"  
  
Blinking the blurriness out of my eyes, I see a doctor in full scrubs standing over me. He's got pale blond hair, pale blue eyes, and long bony hands that remind me of crackling dead twigs. "Sir, we have to give Detective Eames treatment now."  
  
I swallow hard and look back at Eames. She seems even whiter than before and the pulse I felt flickering in her wrist, which lay next to my ear, was weak and faltering. Reluctantly, the stiff ache in my legs creaking, I stand up and walk numbly to the door, where I turn back for a final look before more doctors close in on her.  
  
Outside the room there is a long bench, strewn with sheets from faded newspapers. I collapse onto it and bury my face in my hands. I am tired, so tired, and I can't even begin to think about what will happen next. Bleakly, I wonder if time is supposed to go on after something like this.  
  
Half an hour passes. I pace, try to read the newspapers upside down, try to drink some coffee, try to straighten out my clothes, and do some more pacing. It's on my seventh or eighth session of stalking up and down the hallway when I hear it: a low murmur of voices in Eames's room. One doctor, then another, leaves through the open doorway and disappears down the corridor.  
  
I only have to wait for a moment-a moment filled with sickening dread- before the third doctor appears. "Your partner's well enough to speak a little," he tells me with a smile. "Five minutes, but then she must go to sleep."  
  
I give him a grateful grin in passing as I creep quietly into Eames's room. Her blue eyes open as I kneel by her bedside. "Goren..." Her voice is faint. "What happened?"  
  
I take her hand and rest it against my cheek. "It's not important. How are you feeling?"  
  
"Confused," Eames replies, still persistent. "All I can remember is people shouting and then you holding me..." She focuses her gaze on me, on my rumpled clothes and unshaven face. "Goren, how long have you been here?"  
  
"Ever since you've been here," I answer with a wan smile.  
  
Eames slowly shakes her head, her eyes incredulous. "Why haven't you left already?"  
  
"I wanted to make sure you came through... and you did." I clasp both her hands in mine; they are warm now, and steady. "You've haven't left us."  
  
"Sorry, you're not that lucky," she says, with one of those smiles that always makes my heart race.  
  
I'm about to protest when the doctor pokes his head around the doorway. "I'm sorry, sir, but Detective Eames needs her sleep."  
  
"Okay, okay." I turn back to see Eames rolling her eyes, a rueful look on her face. "I promise I'll come back, all right?" When she nods, I hold my breath and lean down to gently kiss her cheek.  
  
Then the doctor is ushering me out, and I'm walking down to the front doors. The autumn air is cold and clean with the bite of frost outside, and people are shivering in their jackets and light scarves. As I head for the subway station, I feel lighter-stronger-happier than I have in a long while.  
  
  
  
More later, I promise... 


	7. Chapter 7

  
  
Finally, I got a few hours of sleep last night. After leaving Eames at the hospital, I went straight to my apartment and fell asleep the moment I stepped inside the door. All I had to do was stumble from the doorway to the bedroom and collapse on the bed, and I pulled it off-with a couple of bruises on my knee where I banged into the kitchen table.  
  
The apartment is oddly quiet as I get up this morning, and so am I. After all the stress of those hours at the hospital, after all the rage and grief and pain, my emotions are just as worn out as I am. If I tried to cry or scream now, it wouldn't work. I've given up feeling anything, at least for a little while.  
  
So it is in silence that I dress, absently eat something, and wander out the front door. I'm not feeling yet as I step out into the bright sunshine, not thinking... just absorbing. I walk a couple of blocks in a daze before I reach the courtyard, and my heart stops.  
  
This is it. This is where it all began. And it was just like today: the sky was blue, people were sitting at tables scattered across the courtyard, the hot dog stand was standing right over there...  
  
And there. By the coffee stand where Paul is working with a small smile on his face, dusting his orange hair out of his eyes. Eames is waiting for me, the same smile, the same sparkle in her eyes. "Goren!" she calls out, taking a few steps towards me as I stumble down the stairs.  
  
"Eames?" I croak. "Aren't you...?"  
  
"Oh, they got sick of me and threw me out," she grins. Then she puts her hand on my arm, and her eyes hold me captive. "Goren, about what happened at the hospital... I just wanted to say thank you-for everything. You mean a lot to me, and having you there helped me to get through it."  
  
No words of bitter blame for the shooting, just this quiet sweetness. I have to swallow a couple of times before I stutter it out-my big moment, and all I can do is stammer like an idiot, "I love you, Eames."  
  
She stares at me, her eyes wide, and I feel myself crumble under her shock. So much for not feeling, but it's impossible not to feel anything when I'm around her. "I'm sorry, I just... I needed to tell you for the longest time, and then when you were in the hospital I was afraid I would never get to say it..."  
  
But then she is leaning close to me and then her lips are on mine-and let me tell you, Alexandra Eames kisses like nobody else I have ever met.  
  
Paul is whooping and whistling, and I flip him the bird as I draw Eames closer. He howls with laughter and goes back to work, and Eames and I-well, time doesn't really exist for the next few minutes, but then we reluctantly break apart.  
  
"Can you imagine what Deakins is going to say?" she murmurs in my ear, laughing softly.  
  
Of course, I have to kiss her again, and the thought that occurs to me as I do so is that things are definitely going to be all right.  
  
  
  
And they live happily ever after (well, except for the guy Bobby arrested, who gets convicted and is handed down a life sentence in prison)! Thank you to everybody, for your support and encouragement-your reviews and feedback have meant the world to me. See you next time around... *grin* 


End file.
